Brunei among Malaysia’s top visitors

Visitors from the Sultanate reached the top 10 markets for tourism in Malaysia in the first quarter of this year, Tourism Malaysia said in a statement on Tuesday.

Malaysia’s tourism performance for the first quarter of 2024 is promising, where a significant influx of foreign tourists was observed from January to March, reaching 5.8 million arrivals.

The top markets were Australia, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines and the United Kingdom (UK).

This marks a remarkable growth of 32.5 percent compared to last year’s 4.3 million, the statement said.

Tourism Malaysia will continue to strengthen its brand awareness through advertising campaigns, influencer marketing and creating compelling content across digital (70 percent) and traditional (30 percent) media platforms.

The agency will also establish strategic partnerships with airlines, online travel agencies (OTAs) and land and maritime border operators of neighboring countries to increase tourist arrivals.

Key target markets are prioritized into three tiers, led by first-level priorities such as Australia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Second-level priorities include South Korea, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the United Kingdom, followed by third-level priorities including Taipei and Germany. In addition to traditional markets such as Brunei, Thailand and Singapore, the emphasis is also on emerging markets such as Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Visitors from Brunei made up the top five tourist arrivals for Malaysia with 811,833 from January to December last year, while visitors from the Sultanate were the fourth highest in terms of excursion visitors with 304,378 in the same year. – Azlan Othman